The Names of the Stars by Ann Tatlock

Author:Ann Tatlock
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: New Hope Publishers
Published: 2020-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

PART 2

1932–1933

CHAPTER 16

A knock came at the dressing room door. “Ten minutes, Miss Rycroft.”

“Thank you, Mr. Sedgwick.”

I gazed at myself in the mirror. Tonight, unlike most nights, I studied myself with a critical rather than an admiring eye. I was no longer the skinny little girl who suffered hiccups because of stage fright. No longer did I have to perform atop a ladder, lending my voice to someone else, someone prettier and more appealing. The years had grown me up and filled me out to just the right shape, and common consensus claimed that I was beautiful.

But for how much longer, I wondered. Today was May 21, 1932, and it was my birthday. I was now twenty-seven years old, not exactly in the first bloom of youth by anyone’s standards, much less those of the theater. No doubt I could pass for younger; there were as yet no telltale wrinkles, no gray hairs, no sagging skin around my jaw or neck. But still … I understood now why Mother had cried on every birthday. Surely, she had felt as I did today, wanting to freeze time, wanting to preserve both youth and beauty so as to go on living the dream indefinitely.

Because that was what I was living—my dream—and I was far more successful than Mother had ever been. She never auditioned at the Palace—but I did. I was only just recovered from the flu in January 1919 when Mother took me by train to New York and coaxed me into the spotlight on that grand and intimidating stage. She didn’t audition herself because the driving force behind her act was gone. Not only Gina had succumbed to the flu, but Uncle Rex had as well. The epidemic that annihilated nearly twenty-two million people worldwide had also lowered the final curtain on the acts of both Georgia Snow and the Singing Sweethearts.

But I … I was the current sweetheart of the stage, a star of musical comedy, someone the public flocked to see. This had been my life for more than a dozen years. I thought often of Mr. Stanley, and always with great satisfaction. I hoped he was enjoying the taste of crow.

Rising from the dressing table, I ran my hands down the front of my rose-colored silk dress. “Wish me luck, Charlotte,” I said. Charlotte Tennant was my companion; she had been hired by my agent Saul Blasberg two years before when Mother died suddenly of a stroke.

“May you break a leg, Miss Rycroft,” Charlotte said primly, hands clasped properly at her waist. “You look lovely, as always.”

I nodded my thanks, as always. It was our pre-performance routine, reminiscent of the routine Mother and I followed whenever she performed. I neither liked nor disliked this middle-aged spinster who’d been chosen for me at Mother’s passing; she was simply there to do my bidding, to help me dress and undress, and to act as chaperone to me, as I was still unmarried.

“Oh, and Miss Rycroft?”

“Yes, Charlotte?”

“Happy birthday, once again.”

“Thank you.

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